Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/44

Rh sequentially ruinous to the constitution, the gout? this is not to be call'd beneficial in a proper sense: any otherwise than as a lesser evil is more eligible than a greater. But of this question again hereafter, when we will endeavor to give it a fit resolution.

At present we take it for a fixt principle, that the cause of the gout is the abundance of these animal salts, work'd up with vegetable ones arising from tartar and fermentation. 'Tis very apparent that scurvy and gout are near ally'd. This we see abundantly from all authors, especially Dr. Musgrave but the salts in the gout are much more volatiliz'd, The gout then is the legacy of plentiful living and inactivity. These salts are sharp to create a good appetite, which podagrics generally find; but that creates a wrong balance between in-taking and expending. And we may very well with Dr. Cheyne define the gout to be, an effort of nature to throw off this abundance of salts. I add, she understands chymical mixtures well; so she throws 'em off into the oyl-glands, because nought but oyl can sheath their pointed particles.

In order more plentifully to drain off these salts, which must necessarily be convey'd into the blood, more or less, in all our meat, and drink, Nature has well vided